Deep Mapping

Roberto Greco and Selin Jessa wove a beautiful information sharing stream via Twitter last night and thankfully included me in their posts. The research conversation started with Deep Mapping.

A deep map goes beyond simple landscape/history-based topographical writing – to include and interweave autobiography, archeology, stories, memories, folklore, traces, reportage, weather, interviews, natural history, science, and intuition. In its best form, the resulting work arrives at a subtle, multi-layered and ‘deep’ map of a small area of the earth.

This method of exploration has my full attention as it connects to the larger body of networked field studies I have created and those currently in creation. My designs of late do not feel at all like curriculum development but rather like spatial sensemaking of new methods for learning. The interdisciplinarity of the learning through field studies goes without question, but what is fascinating to me is the very real potential for The Bridge Year Learner and young people in general to deeply map the areas they live, study and play in. This goes so far beyond “service learning” or Experiential Education, ect… and into realms we need to consider, and enact with understanding.

To ground truth learning and reflect upon the experience is done to different degrees in different learning situations now. A classroom teacher may follow this pattern or conversely a sailing semester at sea. What interests me is the idea of curating intuition, folklore, patterns and authoethnographic self-observation and reflexive investigation (Maréchal 2009) while exploring, learning and giving back to an area of study. Creating new maps and new frontiers of possibility for self and community social, environmental and economic mutation. This post to be continued….